Monday, December 28, 2015

You know, there’s a moment we often pass
by in this beautiful, lyrical account of Jesus’ birth. It’s the moment when the scene shifts from
Mary and Joseph and the baby, and the spotlight shines on the shepherds instead. They’re just out there minding their own
business, guys working the night shift. Then
suddenly, the darkness turns to day as an angel of the Lord appears before
them.

Now, when we hear the word “angel,” we
might picture cutesy cartoons or lovely tree toppers with wings and flowing
dresses. Instead, picture General Norman
Schwarzkopf or Colin Powell. Angels are
messengers sent from God, and this one’s leading “a multitude of the heavenly
host” (Luke 2:13), which was God’s army – the cosmic legion that fought the
forces of evil just as God’s people waged battles with their enemies, military
and otherwise. Face to face with the army
of God, no wonder the shepherds were terrified.
And no wonder the first thing out of the angel’s mouth is, “Do not fear”
(Luke 2:10). Do not fear, for the
mission this night is peace.

Well, here we are in this beautiful space. Christmas is all around us, as we gather at
home by the fireplace and here before God’s altar. “Fear” doesn’t seem where our focus should
be. But there it is, in the shepherds’
hearts and on the angel’s lips. The heavenly messenger in Luke’s story knows
what he’s flying into, and he’s willing to name it. When God enters into our reality, God enters
into fear.

It was true 2,000 years ago. God’s people were an oppressed minority in Caesar’s
empire, people the emperor cared to count only so he could tax the life out of
them. The Jewish people had no
allies. They didn’t even have a
country. They faced poverty and
political terror – not to mention their own religious leaders, who cared more
for position and power than “the weightier matters of the law,” like justice
and mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23).
Two thousand years ago, God’s people lived in fear.

And 2,000 years later, what do the angels
find when they come to visit us and our culture? As I listen to the voices of friends and
talking heads alike, I don’t hear a lot of Christmas love all around us. What I hear is fear.

So now perhaps you’re thinking, “Uh-oh. What’s he going to name? What side will he take? What’s Fr. John going to tell us we should fear?” Well, hang on for the answer to that question. But here’s some of the fear that I sense all around
us this Christmas. Maybe you’ll find
yourself somewhere in this litany: Some
fear Donald Trump, and some fear Bernie Sanders. Some fear the government can’t cooperate to
solve a single problem, and some fear the government when it tries to solve a single problem. Some fear that they’ll never have enough, and
some fear that government will take away what they have. Some fear police officers, and some fear the
people they pursue. Some fear the guns on
our streets; and some fear the government will take their guns away. Some fear Islam, and some fear becoming a
nation that excludes. Some fear that racism
and sexism silence voices that have been silenced too long; and some fear that,
if they disagree with that statement, their voices aren’t welcome in the
conversation.

That’s a lot of fear.

And to be honest, I have some fears of my
own. I fear for the Church. I’m not afraid because of some external
threat, not because of some “war on Christmas,” but because of our own hearts –
our own sinful hearts. I’m afraid particularly
for churches like ours that try to live into the vision of community that transcends
doctrine, the vision of the big tent where all are welcomed and all are formed
through interaction with each other, even as we disagree, maybe especially as we disagree. We navigated those waters fairly well when
the doctrine was mostly theological – no need in this church to sign on the
dotted line about the nature of God or the efficacy of the sacraments. Now our challenges of belief are messier: What does God think about the social and
political issues of the day? How should
the Church engage them? And how do we
talk about them as people of faith without walking away from each other?

So, back to the question: Fr. John, whom or what should we fear?

Here’s my answer: Fear nothing.
Fear nothing. Not even our own sinful hearts. Because I have some news for you
tonight: We’ve been saved. That Good News won’t be on any of the TV
reports tonight, but it’s true. We’ve
been saved, and from something very specific:
We’ve been saved from our sins.
Matthew’s Gospel makes the connection crystal clear: In that version of the Christmas story, the
angel tells Joseph, “You are to name [the child] Jesus, for he will save his
people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
It’s what his holy name means:
Jesus – “he saves.” He saves his
people from the sinful oppression of the Roman Empire and all loveless regimes. He saves his people day by day from the
sinful selfishness of our own hearts. He
saves his Church from our sinful need to be right at someone else’s expense. Jesus, the savior whose birth we herald this
night, has already won the victory. He
has “taken flesh and moved into [our] neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message); he’s stared down Satan and
sin and death; he’s taken the worst they can dish out; and he’s redeemed death
itself, turning the grave into the gate of eternal life. The victory’s been won. That’s
why the angels are crying out, “Do not fear!”

So if we’ve been saved from the worst we
can imagine, from the power of death itself – then what? Well, then forget
your fear and follow the Savior – all of us, together. And define “together” as broadly as your
heart can muster.

Those of you who were here in the spring
and summer will remember that we had two moments of glimpsing God’s kingdom
along with the people of United Missionary Baptist Church this year. In May, we went to their church at 27th
and Campbell for a Wednesday-night service; and in August, they came here for a
Sunday-morning Eucharist. Well, mark
your calendar for Sunday, Jan. 17. That
morning, we’ll go to United Missionary Baptist again, with our choir singing
and me trying not to put people to sleep from the pulpit. And yes, we will have worship here at St.
Andrew’s that morning, too.

When we go to United Missionary Baptist, I
believe with all my heart, we will be sent by Jesus, who will himself be
leading us there. Jesus is the ultimate
missionary. Jesus is God as
missionary. On this holy night, Jesus the
missionary enters into the extreme difference of human life, taking on our
experience and bringing us together into God’s beloved community. So we will follow him to United Missionary
Baptist as missionaries ourselves, sent into human difference to embody the
healing of the Prince of Peace.

That, I believe, is holy work. And
– not but, but and – it’s every bit as holy, and every bit as necessary, to
embody that healing among ourselves – to listen to those we don’t understand,
and to heal the fears we perpetuate both by polite silence and by raging rant. Just as God invites us to come along on
Jesus’ mission across the divide of Troost Avenue, God invites us to come along
on Jesus’ mission across all divides – in our churches, in our public squares,
and in our own hearts. For as the herald angels tell us, he’s “risen
with healing in his wings; light and life to all he brings.” Listen up,
those herald angels sing: Your Savior
has come! Do not fear!

Monday, December 14, 2015

One of the best things about taking an
early-morning walk this time of year is the chance to see the stars. For millennia now, humanity has navigated by
the stars. They’re always there, always
reliable, always true. And we don’t
always pay attention to them, or at least I don’t. But recently on my walks, I’ve received the
gift of seeing the stars once again in their stunning brightness, piercing
through the nearly-winter sky.

The stars this Advent have reminded me
what needs my attention. It’s sin. As a Church, we’ve moved away from attending
to our sins during Advent, these days preferring the blue of Mary, the blue of expectancy,
to the purple of past years. But Advent
used to be a time we thought about sin, almost a mini-Lent.

The readings both last week and this week
remind us why. In Advent, we hear about
John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord. John the Baptist stands in the tradition of
Israel’s prophets, voices from the outside reminding God’s people what they
already knew, deep down. Whether it’s Isaiah
or Jeremiah, Amos or Hosea, the prophets speak for God – not in the sense of
predicting the future, like a fortune teller, but in the sense of holding up a
moral compass for people set aside as God’s missionary presence to the
world. That was the call of the people
of Israel, to show everyone else what it looks like to live out God’s holiness
and love. That’s our call, too, by the
way.

So, John the Baptist tells the crowds, “Prepare
the way of the Lord” (Luke 3:4). The
messiah, God’s anointed king, is coming; and the time to get ready is now. John doesn’t pull any punches, especially in
Luke’s telling: “You brood of vipers,”
he says, “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance” (3:7-8) –
and don’t you dare rely on belonging to the right group of people as the source
of your salvation. It’s about your own choices, John says. Repent – turn in a God-ward direction.

The crowds are dumbfounded by his
directness. They stammer, “What then
should we do?” (3:10). It’s not rocket
science, John says. If you have two
coats, share with someone who doesn’t. If
you have enough food, share with someone who doesn’t. Even reviled outsiders come and ask John for
the basics of moral living. He makes it
clear: Tax collectors – don’t gouge people
for more than they owe. Roman soldiers –
don’t demand protection money.

I can’t imagine that people found this very
surprising. Even the tax collectors and
soldiers probably knew they shouldn’t extort money from people. The Jewish people in the crowd certainly knew
God’s call to care for the poor – that’s a longstanding message from the Hebrew
Scriptures. John’s offering little here that’s
new. He’s just saying it out loud.

On second thought, maybe there is something new here. We have to remember the setting: God’s people in Judea and Galilee were living
under the thumb of the Roman Empire. They
were a subjugated people, allowed to practice their religion because the Romans
found it convenient but with little other freedom or power. On the ground, Rome’s reach took the form of
oppressive taxation and military occupation.
And the people who did Rome’s bidding weren’t exactly beloved. Tax collectors and soldiers were hated and feared,
and for good reason.

So, back to the reading: There they are, tax collectors and soldiers,
among the crowd listening to John the Baptist.
John could well have drawn lines between faithful Jews and hated
outsiders. Instead, he turns the
tables. It’s the good guys he threatens
with being chopped off at the root and thrown into the fire. And the hated outsiders? John welcomes them as simply more people who
need to repent. That seems crazy. God’s people were afraid of tax collectors and
soldiers. God’s people hated tax collectors and soldiers. God’s people were sure the tax collectors and
soldiers wished them harm. But John the
Baptist doesn’t write off the outsiders.
He recognizes they, too, are God’s creations, different only by being
broken in different ways.

I say all this because we still, today,
find it easy to hate those whom we
fear wish us harm. And just as
troubling, we find it easy to demonize those with whom we disagree, letting our
language do violence we’d never sanction otherwise. John the Baptist’s prophetic witness reminds
us of the truth about pointing a finger at anyone, even someone you find reprehensible:
the other fingers always point back at you.

John the Baptist is a bright star in the
cold, dark sky. Those stars following me
on my morning walk remind me of the ways I miss God’s mark, which is what “sin”
means. One bright star says to me, “Don’t
judge or reject people with whom you disagree.”
Another bright star says, “Take time to love the people around you, not
just get work done.” The brightest star simply
says, “Trust God more than yourself.” I
don’t know what sins of yours the stars might be illuminating this Advent, but those
are some of mine.

And to each of us, John the Baptist says,
“You know the repentance you need. You know the ways your heart misses the mark
instead of finding the heart of God.” If
we each sat here for a few minutes, I’ll bet a few sins might just come to
mind.

You know, that’s not a bad idea. Today, you get the gift of a short homily,
but it comes with the price of a little congregational participation. I invite you to take out one of the blue-and-white
cards in front of you and write down a few ways you know you miss the mark. Names aren’t necessary. When you’re done, you can either offer the
card in the alms basin as a prayer request, or you can fold it up and take it
with you for your own prayers at home.
But let’s take a couple of minutes of Advent stillness, and offer to God
the chaff of sin you need the Holy Spirit to burn away.